


peel the scars from off my back (i don't need them anymore)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: not talking about boys, I'm talking about girls [2]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: ALSO COMING BACK TO THIS LATER, AND GODDAMIT THEY JUST CHARACTER ASSASSINATED ELIOTT TOO, AND NOW ALEXIA'S, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, BECAUSE FUCK YOU SKAM FRANCE THAT'S WHY, Because genderswap!Lucas is named Lucille, Bipolar Disorder, Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, F/F, Found Family, Friendship, Genderswap, HEY SKAM FRANCE I'D LIKE A WORD WITH YOU ABOUT HOW YOU WRITE FEMALE CHARACTERS, Jesus fucking christ, POV Lucille, SO I'M GENDERSWAPPING ELU AND WRITING BETTER PLOTS FOR IMANE AND ALEXIA, Summer AU, THE ACTRESSES & THE CHARACTERS DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER, THIS AIN'T PERFECT BUT IT CAN'T REALLY TREAT ITS GIRLS WORSE THAN SEASON 4&5, YES I'M STILL PISSED ABOUT IMANE'S TREATMENT, also not making Lucille stay on a couch because I'm also still pissed abt that, and Emma Manon Daphne are another while Arthur and Basile are a third one, but the I may have fucked around with the structures of the squads, only Lucas and Eliott are genderswapped, right???, so Imane Lucas Yann and Alexia are one squad, supportive friends, though the Emma/Manon/Daph/Arthur/Basile squads tend to hang out together, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Being best friends with Imane Bakhellal, Alexia Martineau, and Yann Cazas has exposed Lucille Lallemant to a great many things.All of the relationship drama that Yann gets up to, for example. Lucille, Alexia, and Imane had the privilege of front row seats to Yann’s relationships with both Ingrid and Emma crashing and burning- as well as were witnesses to the copious amounts of ice cream he consumed in the aftermath, as well.Lucille was also privy to Alexia coming out as bi. She wasn’t the first person Alexia came out to- while they’re all one big friend quartet, Alexia and Imane are the best of best friends while Yann and Lucille are just a bit closer in their own way- but Lucille heard about it by the time they both turned fifteen.When Imane got a crush on Sofiane, her older brother’s best friend, Lucille was actually the first one of them to know that- and mostly because of the number of afternoons Lucille spent at the Bakhellals' and the Cazases' rather than at her own house.But in the years since- well, it turns out that Imane’s not the only girl with a crush on one of Idriss’ best friends.(In another universe, Lucille Lallemant's life goes a little differently.)
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant, Lucas Lallemant & Imane Bakhellal & Yann Cazas & Alexia Martineau, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sofiane Alaoui/Imane Bakhellal
Series: not talking about boys, I'm talking about girls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639027
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	peel the scars from off my back (i don't need them anymore)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aguamarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguamarina/gifts), [surrealsunday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrealsunday/gifts), [bluesxrgent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesxrgent/gifts).



> Title is from "Welcome Home" by Radical Face, which a lot of this fic was written to.
> 
> Because Skam France apparently hates writing women let me do some shit to maybe fix some things- warning, though, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing except I know that spite is a very powerful motivator and I want to fix something of the treatment of the women by the writers and kind of by the fandom in general. So, here you go- hope you guys like!
> 
> Also, in this AU, Ella's giant manic episode did not include kissing Idriss and thus no reading of the Quran and the suicide attempt. Instead, it's something slightly different, without a suicide attempt, and thus she, Sofiane, and Idriss are still friends going into the summer after Season 1.
> 
> Also, I actually DO like Skam France's Season 3 and the boy squad definitely had some really nice development. I do, however, think that it's the only one that they executed well, and I wanted to give Alexia and Imane plots that (hopefully) do their characters a little more justice.
> 
> (Also include Yann because we stan a supportive bff like our king.)

Being best friends with Imane Bakhellal, Alexia Martineau, and Yann Cazas has exposed Lucille Lallemant to a great many things. 

All of the relationship drama that Yann gets up to, for example. Lucille, Alexia, and Imane had the privilege of front row seats to Yann’s relationships with both Ingrid and Emma crashing and burning- as well as were witnesses to the copious amounts of ice cream he consumed in the aftermath, as well.

(Despite the fact that they all agree that Yann played a rather big role in the disastrous relationship- they’re well aware of his flaws from being friends with him for so long- they were the ones who sat him down in Alexia's dorm room, just the four of them squished in there together, and comforted him in the aftermath. They're Yann's friends before everything, and no matter who was at fault- and it was definitely both Emma and Yann- it always sucks to get dumped.)

Lucille was also privy to Alexia coming out as bi. She wasn’t the first person Alexia came out to- while they’re all one big friend quartet, Alexia and Imane are the _best_ of best friends while Yann and Lucille are just a bit closer in their own way- but Lucille heard about it by the time they both turned fifteen.

(Alexia coming out had both reassured and scared Lucille. Yann and Imane were both really accepting of Alexia, which bodes well for whenever Lucille herself comes out, but Lucille's also seen what Alexia's had to go through due to strangers and others, the ways her boyfriends and girlfriends have often stereotyped her, the way that boys catcall her when she's kissing girls, the way she's been called all kinds of names just for being proud about who she loves.

And then, of course, there's _also_ the matter of Lucille's mother and father, too, who despite the fact that Alexia's family is from the country Lucille _knows_ will react a lot worse than Alexia's family.)

When Imane got a crush on Sofiane, her older brother’s best friend, Lucille was actually the first one of them to know _that_ \- and mostly because of the number of afternoons Lucille spent at the Bakhellals' and the Cazases' rather than at her own house.

(Her mother’s episodes have been getting worse and worse since Lucille’s twelfth birthday. During the last one- the one that Lucille’s father left during, slamming the door behind him- she’d snuffed out a cigarette on Lucille’s left shoulder in an effort to “prevent the devil from sitting on her shoulder and whispering in her ear.”

Yeah, Lucille hasn’t told anyone about that detail yet. She doesn’t think she could bear to.)

But in the years since- well, it turns out that Imane’s not the only girl with a crush on one of Idriss’ best friends.

No, because Lucille just _had_ to end up with a crush on Ella Demaury, Idriss’ other best friend- who just happens to have a boyfriend, because of course she does. When Ella started to hang with Idriss and Sofiane when they were fifteen and Imane and Lucille were thirteen, Lucille saw her from afar.

Ella has a presence to her that draws every eye in the room- or, at least, it draws Lucille's eye every time she sees her. She's also an artist, which is clear from the pen constantly tucked behind her ear and the drawings that sometimes get left at the Bakhellals', and she, Sofiane, and Idriss are an utterly disastrous trio of more epic proportions than the "Chaos Quartet," as Imane's Papa nicknamed Imane, Lucille, Alexia, and Yann at a young age.

Ella Damaury cuts a commanding figure in the stories told around the Bakhellal household and has played a role in several dreams of Lucille's over the years, to say the least.

All in all, Lucille's pretty content to just admire Ella Demaury from afar in the same way that Imane's been crushing on Sofiane from a distance for years

  
-

And then comes the summer between first and second year. Emma and Yann’s shit went down last spring, Alexia currently has a boyfriend who she should really dump because he’s incredibly biphobic and just kind of a dick otherwise, too, Imane and Lucille are already prepping for this year's bio class, and the four of them have already got a prank war planned with Emma, Manon, Daphne, Basile, and Arthur (a somehow weirder collection of friends than Lucille’s own squad, which she didn’t think was possible) for the end of the summer.

In the meantime, though, Lucille is taking full advantage of days spent at the pool, days that have the benefit of her not having to go home and deal with her mother _and_ her getting to ogle Ella Demary from afar. Today's particular day is at the pool by Sofiane's house, at a party he and his parents are throwing. There is a decent mix of adults and teenagers here, with Le Gang, Idriss, and Ella all getting invited to participate in the shenanigans.

Currently, she and Imane are laying on the lawn chairs while Yann and Alexia are busy kicking Idriss and Sofiane's asses in water volleyball. Lucille is cheering on their friends while Imane, on the other hand, can't drag her eyes away from one particular swimmer.

“You’ve gotta stop staring at Sofiane’s abs,” Lucille leans over and whispers teasingly in Imane’s ear, and Imane just gives her a flat stare in return. 

“You’re one to talk," she says, a dark gleam in her eyes that the years have taught Lucille not to trust. "You can't stop staring at your crush, either."

Lucille snorts, covering up the slight nervous lurch her heart does. "Me? Have a crush on someone? Have you met me?"

Imane smirks. "Yes, I have," she says, "And you're a lot more obvious that you think, Luc-"

And, of course, that’s when Ella Demaury, as if summoned by Allah himself (or the cosmos, if you’re an atheist like Lucille), plops down on the end of Lucille’s lawn chair.

Ella Demaury is even more of a legend in the Bakhellal household than she used to be, back when Lucille first developed a crush on her years ago. Apparently she got up to some rather crazy shit at the end of last school year, apparently graffiti-ing the entire back wall of her last high school all in one night, apparently breaking into school at night and hosting an unsanctioned rave, apparently a whole host of other adventures.

Lucille's not sure how many of the rumors are true, but she does know that every one of them paints Ella as a larger-than-life figure, mysterious and artsy and intense, something intensely charismatic about her that makes Lucille feel almost dwarfed in comparison.

And that Ella Demaury, whose smile could rival the sun, who’s wearing a green bikini that has Lucille’s eyes focusing rather embarrassingly on Ella’s toned stomach, who Lucille has the biggest crush in the world on, is sitting on Lucille’s chair, bare back pressed against Lucille’s legs, smiling at her.

“Nice to meet you,” Ella says, voice as gorgeous as her smile or the dark ponytail cascading down her back. “You must be new here.”

“Not really,” Lucille says, because all of her flirting skills she’s perfected on the boys at their school just leave her head the moment she’s dealing with a _real_ crush. “I’m Imane’s friend. I’ve been hanging out here for years.”

Ella shakes her head before Imane can back Lucille up (though, looking at the way Imane’s smirking, she’s not sure Imane would actually do such a thing, the traitor). “You couldn’t have,” Ella says, “I would've remembered a face as pretty as yours.”

It is in this moment that Lucille almost wishes she had skin as dark as Imane and Yann’s, because then her blush wouldn't be visible from a mile away. "Oh, really?" she says, and Ella nods.

"Of course," she says as if it's a truth that can't be denied, a smile on her lips that only shifts when Madame Alaoui calls Ella's name from the other side of the pool. "Sorry, girls, I must go," Ella says, then gets up and walks off. As she walks, though, Lucille is unable to rip her eyes away from the gentle sway of Ella's hips, the easy confidence she carries herself with that Lucille could only wish to attain.

“You have anything you want to tell me about Ella?” Imane says with a smirk, and Lucille stands up from her chair. She's not wearing a bikini, isn't as eye-catching or gorgeous as Ella, but she doesn't think her own black one-piece is too shabby.

(The scar on her shoulder is visible, but under a thick layer of sunscreen and the blinding light reflecting off of the pool and everyone's attention going a million different ways as a result of constant screams and splashes, no one's really noticed it.)

“I’m going to take a dip in the pool,” she tosses over her shoulder, because of all of her friends, Imane is definitely the most perceptive _and_ the most stubborn. “Have fun ogling Sofiane!”

Imane’s laughter follows Lucille as she jumps into Sofiane’s family’s pool, swimming over to join Yann and Alexia, who are all too happy to have her on their team. Now it's three on two, and it takes a very short amount of time for them to gain the upperhand, even against two well-toned eighteen-year-old boys.

-

Lucille bumps into Ella again that evening, once Sofiane’s family has started up the barbecue. (There are no pork products- therefore no hot dogs- but Sofiane’s mother makes a mean fish and his dad is good at flipping burgers, so there’s that.)

“You know, this is rather nice,” Ella says, voice low and husky in a way that sends shivers down Lucille’s spine.

“What’s nice?” she says, because she’s very capable of being just as sharp as Imane at times.

“Getting to see the prettiest girl in the world again," Ella says, easy as that, making Lucille's heart speed up at the compliment- a reaction that makes her want to pull out her defenses, somehow protect herself from this weak feeling in her chest.

Lucille arches an eyebrow. "You're still going with that one?"

Ella shrugs. "Why would I say anything other than the truth?"

"Don't you have a boyfriend?" Lucille asks, and for the first time tonight Ella's brilliant smile dims. Lucille mourns its absence almost immediately and almost wishes she hadn't asked the question despite needing the answer.

Ella shakes her head. "Only sort of," she says, "He and I are close to breaking up soon, anyway." She leans over a little, her smile sliding back in place, somehow brighter than ever. "I kind of like someone else."

"Oh, then," Lucille says, breath catching in her chest. "What's his name?"

Ella's grin sharpens into a smirk. "Who said it was a boy?"

Lucille isn't breathing anymore as she stares up at Ella, who despite her flat sandals is still so much taller than Lucille. Ella, for her part, stares right back.

"Lucille!" Yann shouts, and both her and Ella's heads snap up to look at Lucille's best friend, who is guilelessly waving from by the grill. "Sofiane's dad is almost done with our burgers!"

"Burgers?" Lucille asks Ella, that strange tension between them having dissipated the moment Yann called after Lucille.

"Sounds good to me," Ella says, eyes bright.

Then, as they head over to Yann, Ella asks: "How about we meet up this weekend? Maybe get to know each other better?"

Lucille knows she's an utter fool when she responds, "Sure," but she can't help herself, not when Ella Demaury is grinning at her with that sunshine smile on her lips.

-

Lucille googles Ella over the week, finding out stuff that being Ella's best friend's little sister's best friend hadn't informed her on. Like Ella's movie project, to begin with, one of the very few that Sofiane and Idriss haven't worked on with her over the years. _Polaris_ , Ella had introduced it, all bright eyes and bright smiles.

Bright eyes that she can see in Ella as she jogs up the street to the bus stop she told Lucille to meet her at.

Ella Demaury is just as gorgeous at night as she is during the day, with her honey brown hair pulled back into a large chignon bun in a way that accentuates the bright blues of her eyes and the freckles on her jawbone. She dresses casually, in black denim shorts with a brown jacket tied around her waist and white sneakers on her feet.

And god, she's wearing a _button-up_. A goddamn _button-up._

By the name of all that is good in this world, someone fucking kill Lucille here and now. Did someone tell Ella Demaury about her weakness for girls in button-ups, especially button-ups with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows like that? Because she can give no other explanation as for how Ella is looking like _that_.

(Lucille almost feels unworthy of being in Ella's presence, like her loose-tank-top-over cami + faded denim shorts combo, her own hoodie around her waist, isn't quite cutting it the same way that Ella's clothes are.)

"So," Lucille says, "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere exciting," Ella says, offering out her hand along with a bright smile. "I'll show you."

There's something about the night air and a pretty girl offering her hand to Lucille that makes her take it despite her nervousness, despite the fact that she isn't out yet. It's something about Paris after the sun sets, the air filled with some sort of magic, that allows her to take Ella's long artist's fingers in hers. 

"So," Lucille says as they head off, as smooth as she has been with Ella so far, "You like to draw?"

Lucille already knows the answer- Idriss has talked about Ella's drawing skills plenty, and Lucille's seen the sketches that Ella's occasionally left around the Bakhellal household- but she doesn't exactly know how to do small talk with gorgeous women very well.

Ella nods, eyes sparkling, and Lucille can't help but ask: "How would you draw me, then?"

Ella's bright gaze sweeps over Lucille's face, taking in her features and the other bits of her that Lucille assumes an artist would notice even if she never would. "I don't know," she says with a smile despite the lack of certainty, a smile that Lucille could never pull off due to her own need for concrete answers.

Then she stops outside of a gate, which she pulls open and holds to the side for Lucille to step in front of her. "Ladies first," Ella says with a small smirk, and Lucille rolls her eyes as she steps through.

"What is this place?" Lucille asks as they step through, Ella flipping on her phone flashlight as they go. Her flashlight illuminates the tunnel beyond the gate, lighting up graffiti-covered walls.

"It's a place I've never shown anyone else this before," Ella says, voice a little hushed, a little excited, and Lucille swallows at the fact that that means that Ella never showed Sofiane, Idriss, or even her boyfriend.

"Really?"

Ella nods, turning to look at Lucille, her flashlight illuminating her face. "It's special to me," Ella says, "I only show it to special people."

Lucille's mouth goes dry at the implication. At Ella's _who said it was a boy_ from the other night, at her _I only show it to special people_ tonight, at the fact that they're still holding hands- the last fact of which disappears as Ella's light switches off, plunging the both of them into darkness.

Lucille's breath catches in her throat. Shit. She's afraid of the dark. Always has been, ever since her mother locked her in a closet for five hours in order to "protect" her from the angels.

Thankfully, though, Ella's light flashes back on. "Got ya," she says, tone light as if this is just a game, and Lucille relaxes a little at the sight of Ella's bright grin.

"No, you didn't," Lucille argues, and Ella arches an eyebrow.

"You're afraid of the dark, aren't you?"

"Of course not," Lucille says, despite the truth, and as if to test her Ella's light flickers back off.

"Alright!" Lucille says after a few seconds of the light not coming back on, "I _am_ a little bit afraid of the dark, okay?"

"Okay," Ella says, but her voice is coming from a lot farther down the tunnel- almost from outside of it.

Lucille screws up her courage to follow Ella's voice out of the tunnel and find Ella under the starlight, phone tucked away in her pocket, a light drizzle of rain starting in the air.

Lucille's breath catches again, but this time in some sense of anticipation. She knows this scene- she watched it yesterday, in her Google search, on a site bearing Ella's name.

 _Polaris_ \- the North Star. The story of a creature afraid of the dark and a hero afraid of the light kissing across the barriers between them, at the border of a tunnel.

Lucille knows, in this moment, what she's doing as she raises her hands, stretching them out in offering to Ella, whose expression lights up in joy as she raises her own hands to entwine her fingers with Lucille's under the rain.

And that's where they kiss. There, under the starlight, under the rain, Lucille's hands lifting from Ella's hands to her impossibly beautiful face, Lucille Lallemant has her first kiss with a girl.

And it's absolutely beautiful.

-

They go to Ella's apartment after that, and spend the rest of the night alternatively sleeping, talking, making out, and eating the occasional snack.

They lay on Ella's bed, having peeled off shoes and jackets at the door, wearing nothing beyond their shorts and their bras as their lips find their ways across each others' bodies.

(At one point, Ella's fingers ghost over the scar on her shoulder but she doesn't say a word about it, instead just continuing to kiss her way across Lucille's neck and cheeks. Lucille can't help, in this moment, but be immeasurably grateful for how little Ella prods Lucille on the more dangerous topics, instead just focusing on the good.)

Throughout all of this, they talk. They talk about parallel universes, about Lucille #4562 and Ella #4784, who are just like them but boys, about Lucille #24601 and Ella #13, who live in Spain and met at school, about Lucille #04393 and Ella #2, who met much later in life and are rivals at a dance school.

They talk about hedgehogs and raccoons, about how Ella would draw them and their other friends if given the chance, about Polaris, about how Ella broke up with her boyfriend the day after the pool party and so she's free to spend the day with Lucille.

They talk about everything and nothing, the conversation flowing easily between them in a way that Lucille has never experienced before.

And throughout all of this, Lucille can't stop smiling, feeling safe and comfortable in a way that she's only ever felt before when hanging out with Le Gang- and maybe, even, a bit beyond that, as she's kissing a girl which feels more natural than any boy she's ever touched the lips of.

-

When Lucille meets up with Imane, Yann, and Alexia at the coffee shop the next day, she's unable to keep the smile off of her face- something her best friend calls her out nearly immediately.

"You're smiling, Luci," Yann says ten minutes into their conversation, "And you haven't stopped. What happened?" He himself grins. "Did you meet a boy?"

Now, Yann's been incredibly good about the fact that his three best friends are girls for years. He's always willing to talk about boys or about fashion when Alexia and Imane want to, just as they're all ready to kick his ass in football or paintball or discuss his girl troubles with him if the situation calls for it.

But Lucille's still not out to him, despite the fact that he's her best friend- a fact that's been weighing on her for years.

Alexia and Imane, though, are exchanging looks across the table- Imane because she's the only one of them who Lucille is pretty sure straight up _knows_ about her crush on Ella, and Alexia because Alexia's gaydar has never been known to be wrong before and Lucille long ago guessed that Alexia had probably figured her out.

"Maybe," Lucille says, and Yann's eyes go wide even as Alexia lets out a small squeal and Imane smirks.

"Really? What's his name?"

Lucille takes a deep breath and looks across the table to Alexia, who gives her an encouraging smile that gives her the push she needs to speak.

" _Her_ name," Lucille says, emphasizing the "her" just slightly enough to catch attention, "is Ella Demaury."

Yann's expression shifts through a couple of emotions rather quickly settling on a quiet happiness- a reaction that makes the small knot in Lucille's chest unravel.

"So that's why you were missing yesterday afternoon when we were all supposed to be going to the party," Imane points out, though, pulling Lucille's focus away from Yann.

Oh, shit. Lucille winces. "Sorry about that," she says, "I totally forgot-"

"No worries," Alexia immediately says with a wave of the hand, "If I had the opportunity to make out with a girl as hot as Ella Demaury I'd definitely take it."

"Same," Yann agrees, and Lucille gives both of a glare that is definitely belied by the overjoyed smile on her face, because she came out and all of them took it just fine.

"She's mine, though," Lucille says, "So you can't have her."

"I'm good," Yann says, holding up his hands in defense, "As long as you're happy." He leans in, just a little, taking her hand over the table. "You _are_ happy, right?"

Lucille nods. "Definitely."

"Then good," Yann says.

Alexia, on the other hand, stands up from the table. "Well," she says, "I think this calls for celebration. Rainbow cookies, on me." She then practically skips over to the dessert shelf, blue hair bouncing, and Lucille can't help but grin at the sight.

"I love that girl," she says, and Imane nods, a similar smile on her lips.

"Alexia _is_ the best." She then looks at both Lucille and Yann. "You two _are_ coming to her dance thing, right?"

"Of course we are," Yann says with a small scoff. "Le Gang solidarity, right?"

"I still can't believe you got Imane to agree to that as our squad name," Lucille says, taking a sip of her coffee as she settles back in her seat, pulling her phone out of her pocket to send Ella a text. She'd gotten Ella's phone number yesterday when they'd both woken up, when after Ella had nearly given Lucille food poisoning for breakfast she'd kissed Lucille on her way out the door.

"Neither can I," Imane agrees, and Yann snorts.

"You know you love it, Imane."

Imane rolls her eyes. "I love all of you guys, but the team name? Not so much."

"Aw, you love us?" Alexia asks as she sits back down, four cookies in hand. She gives the biggest one to Lucille before handing the second largest to Imane, keeping the third largest for herself while handing the smallest to Yann.

"You, I love," Imane agrees easily. "Yann and Luc? Now _that_ 's more questionable."

"It's okay, Yann," Lucille says even as she gestures her thanks to Alexia, "We still have each other."

"That's right, Luci," Yann says, holding his cookie up to tap against hers for luck.

-

The next time Lucille sees Ella is on the worst day of her life- the day where she shows up at Imane’s house with a box of her shit and her backpack on her back, begging for a place to stay for a few days while she figures her shit out.

Alexia lives in the dorms because her parents are from the country. Yann has three younger sisters and she definitely can’t stay there. Imane has an older brother and two parents, but at least Lucille could spend a few nights there while she gets her bearings, right?

But the person who opens the door isn't Imane. It isn't Idriss. It isn't even Papa or Maman Bakhellal.

No, the person who opens the door is Ella, whose eyes go wide at the sight of Lucille.

“Oh my god,” Ella says, “What happened to you?”

Lucille, whose eyes are burning with tears, whose face is currently aching, ignores the question. She's unable to even _think_ about romance or golden-lit mornings in bed right now, when her entire body is aching and she just wants to finally have the relief of a safe place to stay.

“Fuck off,” she spits, voice full of venom, “I need to talk to Imane-”

“Lucille,” Ella says, voice soft and gentle in a way that makes Lucille’s skin crawl because she’s sixteen and she just _left her mother_ and if she strikes out here, she has nowhere else to go, so she can’t really handle Ella seeing her like this and taking pity on her. Ella was never supposed to see her like this- well, no one was, but especially not Ella, who was supposed to be the start of something new, something _better_. “What happened?”

“Please,” Lucille says, voice still sharp despite the plea, “Just let me in. I need to talk to Imane."

As if on cue, there's a loud thundering on the steps and within moments Imane is running down them and skidding to a stop in front of Lucille like an angel of the kind that Lucille hasn't believed in since the day she turned twelve and her mother had grabbed her arm so hard it'd left fingerprint shaped bruises and shoved her into a closet to wait until "the angels disappeared."

“You got here early,” Imane gasps, and it’s the most openly worried and upset Lucille has seen Imane in seven years. Somehow that feels like a balm to her frayed nerves. “Oh, thank god you’re safe.”

"That's debatable," Lucille jokes, trying not to cry, and Imane reaches forward and pulls Lucille into a hug- a hug that Lucille knows she would appreciate a lot more if it didn't make her let out a small gasp in pain that is muffled by Imane's hijab.

“Imane?” Ella questions, and now, she sounds kind of lost, in a way that Ella Demaury never should. “Is everything okay?”

“It is now that Lucille’s here,” Imane says, face still buried in Lucille’s hair, and then she leans back to look Lucille right in the eyes. “Yann and Lex are on their way.”

“You didn’t have to ask them-” Lucille starts to protest, because Imane really didn't, but Imane just shakes her head.

"Of course I did," Imane says, "Yann's your best friend and Lex is both of ours, as well. They're our squad, as you and Yann like to insist. When you texted, I knew they had to be here."

Well, Lucille knows that Imane is right, and she doesn't really feel like protesting right now. She's honestly kind of grateful that her best friend and Alexia are going to arrive soon, that the whole Gang will be here. So she lets Imane pull her into the house and deposit her backpack and her box on the ground.

Once the weight is gone from her pained arms, Lucille turns to Ella. “And to answer your question- I’m here because my Dad left and my mom had a mental breakdown and decided to turn my body into a trash can for her collection of tea cups.”

Ella’s face goes bone white and Imane sucks in a sharp breath of air. “Luc,” Imane says, voice as commanding as always yet somehow tender, “Take off your hoodie.”

Lucille freezes. “No,” she says, cursing herself for letting the adrenaline and the relief of being here and the sheer panic over the day get to her. She never should have told Imane what happened with Ella here.

“Luc,” Imane repeats, voice even firmer than before despite the shininess at the corner of her eyes. “Take off your hoodie.”

Lucille doesn't want to. She doesn't want to expose herself like this, in Imane's foyer, doesn't want to bare the wounds that her mother caused her. She both doesn't want other people to see the evidence of the damage her mother did, and she herself doesn't want to see it. It'll make it real in a way that the flashes of pain in her arms, hidden by her hoodie, haven't quite.

But Imane is her friend, and Yann will be here any minute to give her as big of a hug as he did the night she ended up at his house at age eleven, his parents letting her sleepover despite the fact that she was a girl and he was a boy because his whole family had a bad feeling about her parents and they wanted her safe.

So Lucille starts to peel off her hoodie, dragging dried tracks of blood across her skin and revealing bruises beneath. She winces as she tries to bend her arms back far enough to get the hoodie off entirely, and Imane, expression more grief-stricken than she's ever seen it, steps forward to help her out of the hoodie.

"Fuck," Imane swears as the skin is exposed around Lucille's tank top at the same time that the doorbell rings. There are tears in Imane's eyes as she says softly: "Luc, we should have gotten you out of there years ago."

Ella tears her eyes away from Lucille's exposed skin to step aside and answer the door, and Lucille finally puts the pieces together that Ella has seen her like this. She's seen Lucille at her lowest point, seen the sheer damage that her mother has inflicted on her body.

Lucille's feeling numb, but she's not numb enough that the thought doesn't hurt, that Ella got to see all the nasty bits of Lucille's life before Lucille was really to show them to her.

This isn’t the way Lucille wanted Ella to see her for the first time after their night together, after the beauty of the tunnel and Polaris that Ella showed Lucille, after they spent the night kissing and talking, the world a golden bubble around them.

"Oh my god, Luci," comes Yann's familiar voice, and Lucille turns to find her best friend with tears in his eyes. Behind him, Alexia- hair the same bouncy blue she dyed it the day before the pool party- has her hand to her mouth, expression horrified. Yann steps forward. "I'd thought- I'd never thought-"

"I'm gonna go get the first aid kit, alright?" Imane says, turning and heading off with a reassuring squeeze to Lucille's wrist, and Lucille turns back to Yann and Alexia.

Lucille shrugs, looking at Yann and Alexia. Ella is outside, standing on the sidewalk, typing something into her phone, and Lucille shoves the thought of her away, instead focusing on her two best friends, who have stepped forward, worried gazes sweeping over the dried blood flecked on Lucille's right shoulder and the bruises lining sections of the rest of her arms. Most of the tea cups landed with a thump- the one on her right shoulder shattered against the skin.

In fact- Lucille reaches up and pulls a single shard out of her shoulder with a wince. It's small, no bigger than a centimeter or two, but it's definitely not a pleasant sensation to get rid of it.

When Lucille holds up the shard pinched between her fingers, showing the bloody edge to the air, she's realized that she's probably in a state of shock. That's good, though- she doesn't think she'd like it if the pain was fully there.

"God, Luc," Alexia says, stepping forward to gently pull the shard from her hand and throw it into the trash can. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Lucille locks eyes with Yann, whose expression is crumpled in a way she always knew it would if this all got out, from the moment the cigarette burned her shoulder until today. "It never got this bad before," she says, "Believe me. And the fact that I could turn to you guys when it did- that's what you should focus on. That I got out of it."

Yann steps forward and pulls Lucille into a hug, avoiding squeezing her still tender arms, and Lucille is all too happy to be pulled into her best friend's embrace. Alexia steps forward to join the hug, and within moments Lucille hears a box settle on the ground and then feels another pair of arms at her back.

"You'll never have to go back to your mother, Luc," Imane says, and Alexia and Yann both nod against Lucille's hair.

"We promise," Yann agrees, and Lucille believes it.

After a few moments, the hug breaks, with everyone stepping back to give Lucille some room. Lucille glances past Yann and Alexia and out of the door to find that Ella is gone from the sidewalk. Lucille doesn't focus too much on it for now, though, instead letting Imane guide her to the kitchen where she opens up the first aid kit and starts to minister to the wounds on Lucille's shoulder and the bruises on her arms. Yann and Alexia come as well, Alexia starting up some tea while Yann pulls the cookies down from the spot they all know Idriss hides them in (Imane and Alexia discovered the hiding spot in the back of the cupboard _years_ ago during a particularly intense scavenger hunt).

Lucille settles back in her chair, content to let her friends take care of her for once. She's not normally one for this, too used to being self-sufficient, but she's so tired and sore today that she's happy to let it all happen.

-

By the next weekend, Lucille has made herself at home (at least temporarily) in Imane's room. There had been an epic fight as to where Lucille would sleep- Lucille had insisted on sleeping on the floor, Imane on the bed- that had only ended when Imane had pulled her parents in to peer pressure Lucille into sharing the bed with Imane, who would not let one of her best friends spent the entire summer (or however long it took for Lucille to find a more permanent place to stay) on the floor.

Tonight, though, Lucille's on the floor. They all are, actually, due to the fact that tonight's a sleepover.

Yann, when he sleeps over, has to sleep on the floor, and years ago Lucille and Alexia had decided that if Yann had to sleep on the floor because he's a boy, then they would join him in sympathy. Nothing like back pain to build friendships, right?

But today, Lucille's bruises are mostly yellowed by now, the cuts from shards of teacups mostly healed by the ointments and bandages that the Bakhellals helped administer to her wounds. She'd refused to go the doctor just yet as she knows that the moment she goes her mother will get carted off to a clinic, and Lucille knows that her mother _should_ , due to how violent she's gotten when in her episodes, but Lucille's not quite ready for that yet.

Her physical pain, though, is not really the focus right now. It's the fact that Ella hasn't responded to any of Lucille's texts since she saw her the day she moved into Imane's- a fact that Lucille has resolutely decided _not_ to talk about...

...which of course means that Yann and Alexia decided that it would be the absolute best decision in the world to bring it up. Imane is nice enough not to join in, but she's also been the one who got to witness Lucille breaking down and crying about it last night, who held Lucille as she sobbed over her mother and Ella not responding back and all the other shit in her life, so she at least knows a little better.

"You've gotta get her to talk to you, Luc," Alexia says, legs kicked up behind her.

Yann, who is sitting leaning against Imane's bed, nods. "You deserve to know why she left and hasn't responded to any of your messages."

"Listen, Lucille," Idriss adds, "They're right. You need to talk to Ella and get her to see the light."

(It is at this exact moment that Lucille remembers that they left the door open because of the oppressive summer heat- a mistake, looking back, as it's allowed Idriss to overhear their entire conversation.)

"Idriss," Imane hisses from her spot in desk chair, "Not the right time."

"Ella's going out of her mind with worry over Lucille," Idriss says.

"Then why hasn't she fucking texted me?" Lucille snaps, because she's never really been known for having the calmest of tempers, and it hasn't exactly been sitting nicely in her brain that the girl who kissed her last week hasn't said a word to her since she found out about her shitty home life.

"Because Ella's not entirely known for making the smartest decisions in the world when it comes to relationships," Idriss says, some combination of fondness and exasperation in his voice. "And she managed to convince herself that not talking to you would somehow protect you from shit."

Protect her? Since when does Lucille need protection? She's always the first among Le Gang to a fight, the first one to throw hands, the first to snap back at people. She doesn't need protection.

(And yet, a traitorous voice in the back of her mind says, Lucille was the one who was run out of her own house by her mother's thrown tea cups. Maybe her needing protection isn't the strangest idea in the world.)

"Fine," Lucille says, "You get Ella here and I'll talk to her, if only to set your mind at ease, man."

Idriss steps forward and ruffles Lucille's hair. "Fantastic. I promise you won't regret this."

"I swear to Allah, Idriss," Imane says with a roll of her eyes as Lucille tries to fix her hair. "If this is how you treat girls, this is probably why you don't have a girlfriend."

Idriss lets out a noise of protest as he looks to Yann, the lone guy in the room, for some sort of ally. Fat chance at that, though- Yann is _her_ best friend, first and foremost, and he always will be. "What do you mean?"

"Ruffling Luci's hair like that," Alexia explains, "When she _obviously_ put so much effort into it this morning."

Yann, who knows for a fact that Lucille literally just runs a hair brush through her hair, parts it, and then only sometimes pulls it into a simple ponytail each morning, still nods along like the best friend he is. "Never touch a lady's hair, Idriss," he agrees, "Especially not Luci's."

"Or Lex's," Imane adds, and Alexia winks at her.

"Thank you, my dear," Alexia says.

-

Ella shows up at the Bakhellals' the next day. Idriss organized it, Lucille knows, but since it was with her permission she can't really find fault. In fact, she can't deny she's looking forward to seeing Ella and finding out why Ella ghosted her.

Idriss and the Bakhellal parents are at work, though, and the rest of Le Gang is hanging out in the backyard, leaving Lucille as the only one in the house when Ella opens the door, having been given a key by Idriss years ago.

(Lucille might have felt a little bad about ambushing Ella normally, but since both Imane and Idriss are onboard- and, you know, Ella ghosted her for over a week- Lucille doesn't feel too bad.)

"So," Lucille says without prompting, "Why haven't you texted me back?"

Ella flinches as she looks around the room, maybe trying to find a way out. Lucille doesn't have one for her, though, and eventually Ella seems to realize it as she sighs, sets her bag down on the ground, and looks at Lucille as she answers: "I didn't want to hurt you."

"By doing what?" Lucille snaps, anger and frustration over the past week making itself at home in her voice. "Leaving me on read the moment you found out about me having a shit life? Because _that_ definitely left a great impression."

"No," Ella instantly protests, expression going as apologetic and pained as possible. "It's not you, it's me, I swear. It's because I'm bipolar."

"Oh," Lucille says, and Ella's face crumples- something that Lucille hates seeing on the face of the girl who smiles like the sun.

Lucille...well, she’ll just admit that she doesn’t have the best history with mental illness. Her mother, after all, used her skin like an ashtray and a trash receptacle for broken pottery. She'll have the scars of both events for the rest of her life, she knows.

But looking at Ella- she's never once been violent, in all of the time that Lucille's been crushing on her over the years. Not once has Idriss or Sofiane or Imane made a comment about anything violent that Ella's done. All of the rumors about what she did last year- which must have been a manic phase, Lucille now realizes- not a single one of them pointed to anything like what Lucille's mother did to her.

There's nothing that Ella has ever done to Lucille that points to a capability of hurting her like her mother did.

"You should have given me a chance to talk about it before assuming shit," Lucille says, and Ella blinks at her, mouth dropping open just a little. "Just because my mom's mental illness led to her doing bad shit doesn't mean that yours does. You've never been anything but kind to me. You're- you're not like her."

Ella looks like she's blinking back tears. "But I'm not always nice. Sometimes I'm a pretty shit person to be around."

Lucille steps forward and looks up at Ella, who has a decent half-foot to foot on her which is only exacerbated by the fact that Ella's wearing sneakers on her feet while Lucille's still in socks since she _has_ been living here for the past week. "Then give me the chance to work this all out," Lucille says, "Let me see you when you're not at your very best and let me show you that I can handle it. I'm not perfect, I know I'll fuck it up, but at least give me a chance to make my own decision before you decide to cut me out." Ella won't look her in the eyes, but there's the smallest hint of a smile growing on her lips. She still seems to be hesitating, though, so Lucille gives it one last shot and offers out her hands to Ella. "So give this a chance, please?"

Ella takes a deep breath before nodding. "Yeah," she says, "Let's give this a chance." She takes Lucille's hand in hers, just like they did in the tunnel, but then Ella makes the move to let go of Lucille's hands in order to move her hands to the small of Lucille's back, pulling Lucille in. Lucille is all too happy to reach up to Ella's face and pull her in for a kiss, not as passionate as the making out they did in Ella's bed a few weeks ago but still something deep and tender, something that _means_ something.

There's a knock at the back door, though, that interrupts them, and they pull apart- though Ella's hands don't leave Lucille's back. "Can we come in now?" comes Yann's shout, and Lucille turns with a smile on her lips to see Yann, Imane, and Alexia out the back door, Imane and Alexia on the swings behind her best friend.

"Can they come in now?" she asks Ella, a teasing smile on her lips.

"I think they can wait, don't you?" Ella says, pulling Lucille in closer by the waist, and Lucille is all too willing to nod.

"I think they can wait another five minutes," Lucille says, rising up on her tiptoes to sling her arms around Ella's neck to pull her in a little closer so their kiss will be at a better angle. As their lips press together, Lucille can hear the voices in the backyard rise again as Yann heads back to talk to the girls.

Five minutes turns into seven minutes turns into ten minutes turns into the back door opening with a: "You two better have worked out your shit!" from Imane that has Ella and Lucille breaking apart with shared giggles as Le Gang enters the house.

"I'd like to say we did," Lucille says as she turns to look at her friends, who are all smiling at her and Ella. "Guys, this is Ella, my girlfriend." The word sends a rush of excitement through Lucille as she looks back to Ella. "Ella, these are Le Gang. My best friend, Yann, the platonic love of my life, Imane, and my queer guru, Alexia." Each friend offers up a smile, smirk, or small wave, respectively, as she introduces them.

"Well, Ella," Yann says, "Nice to meet you fully. Want to go to the park with us and grab some pizza?"

Ella glances to Lucille, who gives her a reassuring smile, before nodding. "Sure," she says, "Sounds like a great plan."

"Then grab your shoes, Luc," Imane says, "We've got a lunch to get to and embarrassing stories to tell Ella." She claps, leading them all forward, even as Lucille lets out a small sound of protest.

"I can't wait, Imane," Ella says, a shit-eating grin on her face, and Lucille anticipates a long career of keeping her friends and her girlfriend from ganging up on her.

But as Alexia tosses her back a small, knowing smile as Imane and Yann lead the way out the door, Lucille finds that she doesn't much mind such an idea, especially as Ella leans over to place a kiss on Lucille's temple as they follow her friends to the door. Having a girlfriend like Ella and friends like Le Gang, even with the annoyances or obstacles, is well worth their presence in the end, because she knows that she's far happier with them than without.

**Author's Note:**

> Me getting to the end of this fic and remembering that Sofiane was in Australia I think for this entire summer: whoops
> 
> Also, after this imagine the Bakhellal parents hunting down Mr. Lallemant and convincing him to get his wife into a clinic and pay for his daughter to live in a flat, if she wants. Then, though Lucille loves living with the Bakhellals, she hears through Alexia that Manon Demissy just moved to Spain (because fuck Charles, she met a girl named Noora online and they're living it up together) and a room is open in her old flat. Badda bing, badda boom, Lucille gets her own room (and doesn't have to live on a sofa, yay!).
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this! After everything that Skam France has pulled on Imane and Alexia over the past two seasons (the cheating, the bad writing, the bad friendships, etc.), it felt rather nice to give them a story where they get to be happy without all of that other shit. They didn't get as large of a focus as I'd have liked, but I really liked the dynamics of the new version of "Le Gang" and I like to think that they (and Yann and Lucille) did too.
> 
> Also, comments are a writer's lifeblood and I really appreciate them a lot, so please feel free to leave a comment if you liked it or if there's still a genderswap y'all are waiting for- because trust me, I definitely am- just imagine Isabel Valtersen in her snapback stumbling her way through a conversation with Eva Bech Naeshim or Amara Rametta in her grandpa button-ups meeting with Nicoletta Fares in Bracciano. Priceless, right?


End file.
